News: Sadler's Wells Announces New Autumn Season for 2018

Monday 30 April 2018

Sadler’s Wells announced their new Autumn/Winter 2018-19 season of dance last month, which will feature new creations by some of the world’s leading dance-makers and artists including the UK premiere of the Azerbaijani opera Layla and Majnun, a collaboration with American choreographer Mark Morris the Silkroad Ensemble – the musical collective founded by Yo-Yo Ma. A tragic story of Majnun (meaning “possessed”), who is driven mad over his love of Layla, is performed by 16 dancers that tailor their movements to improvised mugham music, with traditional Asian instruments alongside Western strings and percussion.

Rambert returns once more to present one of the last opportunities to see their company classic, Ghost Dances alongside exhilarating work by early-career dancers in their young company, Rambert2. The mixed programme features work by Sydney Dance Company’ Rafael Bonachela’s, Sadler’s Wells’ Associate Artist Sharon Eyal and Rambert’s guest artistic director Benoit Swan Pouffer.

This is followed by Dystopian Dream, a concept originated by composer Nitin Sawhney and co-devised with dancers and choreographers Honji Wang and Sébastien Ramirez. Taking inspiration from threads woven through Nitin Sawhney’s album of the same name, this stage interpretation directed by Wang Ramirez combines choreography, live music and theatre to examine themes of loss, isolation, surrender and continuity.

Award-winning collaborators Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Antony Gormley reunite in the UK premiere of Icon and Noetic, two works created with Swedish contemporary dance company GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, which makes its first visit to Sadler’s Wells. Icon sees three-and-a-half-tonnes of clay moulded, heaped and shaped by 18 dancers to the sound of traditional songs from the Amami Islands, French ballads and medieval compositions. In Noetic, 19 black-clad dancers manipulate Antony Gormley’s pliable carbon fibre strips in an exploration of noetic (from the Greek “noesis” meaning intellect) philosophy.

Finally in early 2019, Sadler’s Wells will be introducing a new evening by the International Associate Company Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, whose style was forged over decades performing the late Pina Bausch’s huge catalogue of works. The company embarks on the expansion of its repertoire with new works by Greek choreographer Dimitris Papaioannou and Norwegian choreographer, director and award-winning playwright Alan Lucien Øyen.

Full details of the new Sadler’s Wells Season visit the official website.